“HOLY GRAIL”: Review Of Jay Z’s ‘Magna Carta… Holy Grail’

When Jay Z opened his headlining set at Glastonbury in 2007 – guitar and American flag in tow – with a cheeky cover of Oasis’ “Wonderwall,” it made for an instantly memorable Hip-Hop moment. It was enough to put a relatively significant accomplishment (Jay Z was the first rap artist to receive top billing at the festival) over the top, and offered a clever “f*ck you” to detractors like Noel Gallagher. Magna Carta…Holy Grail is its own kind of breaking down the door moment, and not just in its much ballyhooed and think-pieced marketing campaign. On his twelfth solo album, Jay Z is attempting to re-imagine his success in a context much wider than Hip-Hop. Read closely, it’s meant as the ultimate hyper-capitalist tale of inspiration. The difference from that Glastonbury triumph lies in the details – the varying degrees of vision, execution, and timeliness.

There is enough on the album to half-convince you not to simply write off Jay Z as a badly-aging superstar. He remains a deft boaster when inspiration strikes, kicking Mafioso-inspired rhymes alongside Rick Ross on the pulsating “F*ckWithMeYouKnowIGotIt,” and bragging (truthfully) about his penchant for turning “arenas into churches” on “Heaven.” When he busts out a turn-of-the-millennium-era flow on the goofy but still kind-of-fun posse cut “BBC,” it sounds for a minute like he’s hardly lost a step.

But Magna Carta… has a way of harshly yanking you out of these moments, whether it’s with awkward old man references to hashtags and retweets, poorly telegraphed wordplay (Little Monsters/Gaga, Kubrick/Eyes Wide Shut), or full-on missteps like the glitchy, NES-styled “Tom Ford” or the flabby-and-sick war call “La Familia.” When he tries to get deep on “Heaven,” Jay Z begins to veer into the pseudo-philosophical (“Question religion / Question it all / Question existence / Until them questions are solved”). He remains more savvy with style than content: on the very same track, he fares far better playing with the sound of his rhymes (“Meanwhile this heretic / I be out in Marrakesh / Morocco smoking hashish / With my fellowship”) and experimenting with cadence and inflection.

It stands to reason that Jay Z would fight to keep “Oceans” for himself. It’s a heart-and-soul anchor of a track, a shrewd bit of anti-history set to a tense, cinematic backdrop and featuring a picturesque, deeply felt chorus from Frank Ocean. It’s packed with clever cultural allusions and imagery; at its core it’s a tale of “crash[ing] through glass ceilings” and “break[ing] through closed doors.” It plays like Jay Z’s profound “sit back and reflect” moment – considering his ascension not just in musical terms but in historical ones. Over the course of the album, Jay Z invokes Ali, Malcolm, and Martin Luther King as he tries to carve his spot within the pantheon of Black excellence. But he’s arguably always been more Michael than Mohammad, and though he continues to grapple with his own rarefied air, it remains a skeleton with which to riff rather than something he’s prepared to follow to its fully fleshed-out end.

If the body of the album is somewhat compromised, the shiny exterior that is the production is nothing to scoff at. Timbaland – in his first real extended work with Jay Z – makes off particularly well, at the helm for the swaggering “Picasso Baby” and the introspective rattlesnake Western “Jay Z Blue.” Slightly indulgent in its running time, the album makes up for it somewhat through its musical scope. From the piano-dripping opulence of “Somewhere in America” to the menacing synth march of “Crown” and the death knell soul of “Heaven,” Magna Carta… isn’t lacking for event caliber musicality.

On the perfect-for-dramatic-montage opener “Holy Grail,” Jay Z references another iconic ’90s song – interpolating a few lines from Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” This time, there’s no knowing wink, no sly smile. It’s a clunker of a moment on a song about #onepercenterproblems. Such is the thin line between a good idea and a poor one. A dozen albums in, and even for Jay Z, it’s never quite a given that he’ll always be able to distinguish between the two.

I agree with everyone. Those had the makings to be the best songs on the album. And @McFearless if that’s true then I (so far) hate that they didn’t just make actual songs and then actual sequels. You don’t watch a movie and then when the climax of the 1st and 2nd act comes, it cuts to black.

It is a pretty average to slightly above average Jay album. I also think “Holy Grail” is a terrible song with just a good Justin sung hook. And as others have stated, not sure why Beach is Better and Verses are so short. I get for Verses the simplicity plays to the jab nature it is meant to be but come on Jay. Stop wasting good beats just so you can stunt. Main thing with it, outside of maybe playing Somewhereinamerica and F.U.T.W. if they pop up on an iTunes jamfest, I personally don’t see much reason to come back to album this at a later date.

Eh, I still think it’s his best album since “American Gangster” (“Throne” included). I figured it’d get 3.5. I think it falls between 4-4.25ish cigs. it does run a lil bit too long, but I think the pros far outweigh the cons with MCHG.

And a lot of people criticized the “Teen Spirit” part of “Holy Grail”, but I’m was never too big on “Teen Spirit” anyway, so i just don’t see it :

I still think that American Gangster is his best beginning to end album post-retirement. The rest of them haven’t been albums in the traditional sense, but rather a collection of singles. (which you could sort of say about the Black Album also). Blame Apple and the iPod and iTunes selling singles for killing the concept of an album.

It’s a solid album that had the potential to be great save for some what felt like rushed concepts. The 1st half of the album, flaws and all, seems to flow nicely and then seems to stumble somewhere around F.U.T.W. and never seems to recover cohesion

Decent review, a little harsh for me{I would’ve given it 4} but I feel like you kept it honest. Only tracks I could do w/o are On The Run & La Familia. I personally like both the Cobain reference{ and we’re all just entertainers, acting stupid, it’s contagious} and Tom Ford. Speaking of that song, with the references to his status in Houston, the word Trill, fashion, his specific attacks on tumblr and “hashtags & retweets”, being dismissive of molly, the screwed up outro and an audio clip of Pimp C behind it, I take it as Jay Z subliminally G checking Asap Rocky for his twitter recklessness.

This has been my favorite album of 2013 so far with whatever you would call run the jewels and stranger than fiction (mixtapes? street/internet albums?) I just don’t see how kany gets so much credit from everyone for pushing boundaries beat wise even though half of them made me sick, and jay doesn’t get the credit for pushing lyrical boundaries as he has some of his most grown up songs on this album much like nas with life is good.

Although I always appreciate albums that are light on features, I’d actually like to hear some other cats go in over these tracks. jay just has nothing interesting to say anymore. american gangster was compelling only because he lifted the entire concept from somewhere other than his current 1%er llife

i think if he had replaced Tom Ford with Nickels and Dimes, and then ended the album after Heaven, not evening give us the beach is better tease, the album would have had better reply value. much tighter.

i cant respect some of yall….the night it came out u fucking worms were saying its better then black album or on par w blurprint now that the magic of marketing wore off yall wanna say its basic. also tom ford GOES.

Tom Ford is classic Hov, smh he stands in front of the speakers and disses every rapper talking about Molly. I think it’s a full body of work. I think Cell said “why do half the song and then a sequel?” I’d respond with….you go to movies…..they have trailers for future movies and sometimes at the end of the movie you see…after the credits….they roll some 45 second clip to keep you wanting more. idk just a stab at this new rules marketing lol. Only thing that hurts replay for this album imo is “Run the Jewels”

It’s decent at best, but as stated before, the real show stealer on this one is the over the top production. Hov’s taking the Rick Ross (michael bay of rap) route now and just letting the presentation do all of the work. I don’t expect him to spit like pre-Black Album Hov, but at the same time, I’d like to see him do these beats alittle more justice. I can’t say I really have a desire to hear much of these songs anymore..but the crazy thing is, I still find it to be a solid album. Like it has balance: the “deeper” tracks contain more traditional hip hop drums/sounds such as Heaven, Oceans, etc. where as the “stunting” tracks are an aged rich ass Jay over a more modern sound, which isn’t as cheesy as I originally pictured it. It has its ups and downs, but still, it’s a better product than BP3, which I found to be his absolute worst album. Although it’s not as exciting as presented, it still has me wanting to hear more from Jay and what little creativity he has left..I just hope he can put alot more effort and care into making another classic (or near classic like AG.) I give it a B-